Shale Gas

[Sprotyrover]

Just what do people think? At a time when Germany has pulled the plug on Nuclear and turned to building coal fired Power stations.
At a time when we are due to lose all our old worn out Coal fired power stations and the lights will go out.
At a time when we are about to let a foreign interest build two new nuclear power stations provided they can charge us what they want.at a time when our scenery is being ruined by 400 foot high monster windmills that are the biggest eyesores imaginable. And will never produce enough power to meet a fraction of our demand and which we are paying for in fuel our bills.
We have got a bunch of green geeks telling us that we need to scourge ourselves for failing to meet our pledges because we are pushing up Carbon emissions by buying white goods from the Chinese and LNG from Arab countries who use climate unfriendly techniques to create it.
We have got a bunch of Idiots telling us that we shouldn't even attempt to try and exploit a natural resource ...Shale gas which apparently could be so plentiful that it could provide for the entire countries fuel needs for 3/400 years.
Because it could upset the apple cart and prevent us from attaining our Carbon reduction pledges!

[Sheepskin Stu]

Frack off.

[Keith Myath]

To be fair, when you poison the earth, it stays poised. The idea of Fracking is a good one, but untill they work out away of not pumping 1000's of gallons of chemicals to do so then i'd gladly see the lights go off now and again.

Theres an American documentary called 'Gasland' about fracking, pretty shocking stuff showing what the effects were had on the yokels away from the cities. More shocking was the goverments ignorance on the matter, ignorance which our goverment bought into. I'd take nuclear over shale.

[Sprotyrover]

Keith the Gas lands documentary has been pulled to pieces the guy who gas gas in his water had drilled his water well through a natural gas pocket, one of the locations they featured has been getting the gas in water phenomina since the 1930's!
The two main chemicals are hydrochloric acid,used in the Beer making process and found in your stomach fluids the other is used by water companies to kill bacteria in drinking water!!!
As for the Earth tremors the University of Durham pulled 80 years worth of seismic records and have concluded that,coal mining causes bigger tremors,as does quarrying and the worse culprit is bottoming out a reservoir during its construction.

[Keith Myath]

Pulled to peices by who? every documentary that is anti capatalist is pulled to peices in America. The gas in the forcets wasnt what i was pertaining too, more the long term effects of what this process does.

Im amazed that anyone regardless of background can think Hydrochloric Acid is safe, as an engineer who has worked at upteen chemical plants dealing with this acid and its gasses (HCL)on a daily basis i think you may well be mis-informed.

The fact that a very minute % is used in brewing is hardly a reason to pump 1000's of gallons of the stuff into our earth, with no way of ever geting them out again.

Where on earth did you get 300-400 years supply of gas from? They say that  everyyear about the oil that no one can find all so they can justify the use billions of dollars of dwindling oil reserves to search for it. Madness!

[BobG]

There's another reason for the perpetual cry that shale gas, oil and so on will last hundreds of years: imagine the panic, the chaos, the hysteria if people started saying 'We've got about 10-15 or 20 years worth left'. Ignorance is bliss.

I wouldn't want hydrochloric acid swilling about either. Really nasty stuff. So is that acid stuff in your stomach. It has to be: imagine what it has to deal with in no time at all. I'm sure there's an expert amongst us, but it's a reasonable hypothesis that stomach acid is effing nasty stuff.

Cheers

BobG

[Sprotyrover]

You have a point Bob it depends on the quantities used I suppose.

[River Don]

From what I understand shale gas is relatively expensive to extract, so you need fuel to be at a high price to make it worth while and once you have it up and running it depletes at a relatively fast rate, it probably isn't a longterm answer to our energy needs.

If other countries are not allowing fracking, then there have to be real concerns about it's safety, don't there?

I think we would be wisest to hold off exploiting what we have, let the Americans flood the market first and learn from their experience.

Then when fuel is getting scarce again we'll be quids in, extraction techniques might have improved and we'll be better informed about the hazards.

Oh and I agree with Bob, when we're having to resort to fracking, deep water drilling and potentially drilling in arctic waters then you know the easy stuff is already declining. I strongly suspect fuel will remain relatively expensive from here on in. Economic growth will be subdued or non-existent and nobody wants to think about the consequences.

[Sprotyrover]

Yet another good observation,I gather its lies at about 7000 feet and when the yanks drill it,you get a good flow from a well for a couple of years then the pressure falls and it starts to run out,however their shale beds are 500 feet thick and ours are over a mile thick.we can drill one well whereas they need to drill twenty.
If the reserves are so huge we will be laughing because technology will improve as will our ability to extract a greater % age of it.apparently the British Geologial surveys estimated reserves are so huge that the energy minister has told them to have another look at the figures.

[River Don]

I have read contradictory stories about the viability of UK shale gas. For every positive story there seems to be one like this:

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/viability-of-shale-gas-power-source-in-doubt-due-to-cost-8428145.html

[Sprotyrover]

Yes it's all up in the air at the moment,The government does seem to have a coherent energy policy either which is most disconcerting,no practical Nuclear strategy (most countries seem to have quietly shelved their Nuclear plans after The Japanese disaster) no plan to replace our almost expired Coal fired power stations and not a lot happening on the gas front.

[River Don]

I read the other day the Japanese are having to reverse the decision on nuclear power, several power stations will be reopening soon.

The Germans on the other hand are opening new state of the art coal fired power stations with all kinds of clever ways to make them more efficient and greener. I think we ought to be looking at that.

[BobG]

Ah but that would mean employing nasty miners again Sproty and they could hold the country to ransom.

Of course, the fact that the only known big scale energy source available to this country, that will last for a minimum of 200 years, doesn't have any bearing at all on the thinking of our wonderful politicians.

Cheers

BobG

[Keith Myath]

We were River Don, the leading European funded answer to clean Coal & Co2 capture was shelved by our own goverment this year. Clearly Tory peers dont have enough fingers in that particular pie.

Had Margaret Thatcher not obliterated our oil/gas supplies, by over producing when gas/oil was dirt cheap, then we wouldnt even be considering fracking. Norway, understood the obvious and did the complete opposite.

[BobG]

It's cos of them nasty miners again Keith!

Ha ha! Can you imagine the outcry from the unthinking right if a Tory government were to set going a plan to build and operate shedloads of coal fired power stations?! They'd argue that they'd use imported coal, but the reality, of course, is that sooner rather than later, they'd be opening up the mines again. Ha ha. They'd all have heart attacks. Bring it on!

Cheers

BobG

[Sprotyrover]

Can you tell me what the last Government did to re open the mines?.....
Naf all! Labour had been in power 13 years and how many mines were re opened ....none.
There are approximately 200 million tons of economically recoverable  coal in the UK 100 million tons of it are accessible from Hatfield main.
It will always be cheaper to import coal rather than develop new mines.
The Government has signed up to a ridiculously harsh carbon emission programme which means that they can't even contemplate Coal as a fuel, some of you will remember that it is the dirtiest way to obtain power.
I seem to recall that there is several billion tons under the vale of Belvior just look at the furore being kicked up about shale gas, nobody living in the Tory heartland of Belvior will ever permit half a dozen dirty stinking coal mines in their back yard.
Not when there is 17 billion tons of Brown coal in Kosovo to be mined.or should I say just dug out of the ground.

[Sprotyrover]

Keith I don't understand what went wrong with the Hatfield Colliery Coal Gasification bid.something won't have been right for the Govt to pull its support.
They have been behind that project since it inception.
Something won't be right somewhere along the line,it's a good idea but maybe they aren't so keen to set fire to 19 Coal seams. Under a Labour heartland!

[River Don]

Interestingly the Germans aren't expecting to burn too much in the way of German coal in their new power stations. The German coal mining industry has largely gone the same way as its British counterpart. They are looking to import cheaper stuff from places like Poland and South Africa.

[Filo]

Keith I don't understand what went wrong with the Hatfield Colliery Coal Gasification bid.something won't have been right for the Govt to pull its support.
They have been behind that project since it inception.
Something won't be right somewhere along the line,it's a good idea but maybe they aren't so keen to set fire to 19 Coal seams. Under a Labour heartland!

The Hatfield co2 project had £420M in EU funding and our Conservative Government decide the £1b put aside to develop Carbon capture schemes would be better spent on projects in areas that are not Labour heartlands, the EU funding was subject to the UK funding, our Government kissed goodbye to £420M of EU money because these other less advance projects had n`t secured EU funding. The decision was political, pure and simple!

[Sprotyrover]

But why did they sanction the Drax project I thought they were looking to develop a carbon capture system along the M18/Humber corridor?

[ravenrover]

Keith I don't understand what went wrong with the Hatfield Colliery Coal Gasification bid.something won't have been right for the Govt to pull its support.
They have been behind that project since it inception.
Something won't be right somewhere along the line,it's a good idea but maybe they aren't so keen to set fire to 19 Coal seams. Under a Labour heartland!

The Hatfield co2 project had £420M in EU funding and our Conservative Government decide the £1b put aside to develop Carbon capture schemes would be better spent on projects in areas that are not Labour heartlands, the EU funding was subject to the UK funding, our Government kissed goodbye to £420M of EU money because these other less advance projects had n`t secured EU funding. The decision was political, pure and simple!

I'll just say 2 words and leave it at that Richard Budge.

[RobTheRover]

Tidal power has to be the future for Britain, given the strength of currents that surround our islands.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/05/tidal-power

It needs some significant investment but the technology is virtually perfected.

[Sheepskin Stu]

It's only coming through in waves.

[Keith Myath]

Tidal power has to be the future for Britain, given the strength of currents that surround our islands.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/05/tidal-power

It needs some significant investment but the technology is virtually perfected.

Cant find the article but there was a published paper at the time of going nuclear about going Tidal instead, the Tidal argument was proved and won hands down, but some cheeky buggers in Goverment with more interest in energising their bank balance, rubbed out the service criteria for replacing the tidal sub sea equipment from 6 years to 6 months. The documents were released a few years back and have clearly been tampered to favour nuclear.

The French took this idea and made it work, quite succesfully back in the 60's

[Sprotyrover]

Igas announcing that there is likely to be 102 tcf in their licence area in Chesire,coupled with the Bowland shale reserves of 200 tcf that means probs 300 tcf in Those 2 areas sumizing 10 % only recoverable means 30 tcf to be extracted which is 20 years worth of gas at our current consumption rate.

[RobTheRover]

OK, so now Ed Davey is virtually admitting he has no idea how to solve the Nation's energy issues, so he's making it our problem to solve....

http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/decc_seeks_views_on_community_energy_to_inform_new_strategy_2356

Anyone want to sign up to a communal solar farm project, queue up here.